Neat-O: Retrofitting ‘Horrible’ Home Theater

Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Central Coast Audio Visual was originally brought into this project to replace four outdoor televisions, and its “Neat-O” work and professional work ethic led to a whole-house retrofit project.

Regarding the outdoor TVs, the original integrator had installed standard TVs, and over a year’s span in the sunny Southern California climate every one of them had failed, says CCAV owner Chris Wilson. So the seed of this project was their replacement with SunBriteTV all-weather displays.

“At this point we thought our project was over,” Wilson notes. But the homeowner asked if the installer could also look at his six-zone distributed audio system, which wasn’t working either. After checking it out, the installer confirmed that the amplifier would overload and shut down within one minute of use.

With the wheels now churning, the owner also asked what CCAV thought of his home theater. In more polite terms to this high-profile client, “we mentioned that it was horrible,” says Wilson. “His projector was only outputting 720p, his front-channel LCR speakers were in-ceilings that were not angled, and his equipment rack was a rat’s nest of wiring that a professional installer should be ashamed of.”

The theater is roughly 300 square feet and is located off of the living room through two double doors. The existing equipment rack was only 30 rack spaces tall and was framed into the wall of the theater.

“We had to cut open the wall and expand the rack area to accommodate the new 42-space Middle Atlantic rack,” Wilson says. “Because we didn’t want the equipment interfering with the viewing experience, we placed a 3⁄8-inch smoked glass door in front to not only buffer equipment LED lights, but also the small hum of cooling fans installed in the back and top of the equipment rack.”

Because of the theater’s age, only component cables had been run to the projector, so CCAV needed to upgrade for the new 1080p THX-certified JVC model. “We ended up pulling Cat 5 cable from the rack to the projector through extremely tight existing conduit and added Gefen HDMI baluns to convert the signal,” says Wilson.

CCAV also tweaked the surround-sound setup in the master bedroom, where the client did most of his TV viewing. The original installation featured all in-ceiling speakers, but the design did not optimize the bedroom layout.

“We solved the problem by replacing the LCR in-ceiling speakers with a Leon LCR Horizon Series Soundbar, which incorporates all three channels directly below the TV,” Wilson explains. “The soundbar uses four 6-inch woofers and three tweeters to really rock the room. Because this soundbar is mounted to the TV, which is on an articulating wall mount, no matter where the viewer is situated, the sound will always be aimed toward them.”

Congratulations to Chris Wilson for a Neat-O! installation. We’re looking for over-the-top projects. Cool, unique, tidy or meticulous, share your best work with our readers. E-mail your submissions, with high-resolution images, to managing editor Arlen Schweiger at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).